And recall that's it always the social conservatives who are told to shut up and eat our peas by supporting whoever the GOP nominates. Yet it never seems to be the social conservatives who bolt every time they don't get their way. Maybe they should.

UPDATEIn case you're having trouble keeping score:

In the 2004 and 2010 Pennsylvania GOP Senate Primary races, the NRSC endorsed Arlen Specter, not once, but twice, over the more conservative candidate, Pat Toomey. The second time the NRSC involved itself in trying to pick and choose Pennsylvania's Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, Toomey actually had a sizeable lead over Specter and an arguably better chance of winning the general election. A month after the NRSC endorsement, Specter switched parties and became a Democrat.

In the 2006 Rhode Island GOP Senate Primary race, the NRSC endorsed the perennially unreliable Lincoln Chafee over the more conservative candidate Steve Laffey. Chafee went on to win the primary but lose in the general election. A short time thereafter, Chafee abandoned the Republican Party to run as an independent for Governor of Rhode Island.

In the 2010 Florida GOP Senate Primary race, the NRSC endorsed mushy moderate Charlie Crist over the more conservative Marco Rubio. When Rubio pulled well ahead of Crist, NRSC Chairman John Cornyn said he was sticking with his endorsement of Crist as a matter of "honor". With Rubio currently polling ahead of Crist by over 30 points, tomorrow, Crist is expected to announce that he is leaving the GOP to run as an independent.

Cornyn and the NRSC are getting quite a bang for all the bucks they committed to these backstabbers, huh?

In what is shaping up to be the best election year for Republicans in decades, there is one person who has almost single-handedly made the path to victory more difficult and costly for the Grand Ole Party. That person is National Republican Senatorial Committee’s chief strategist Rob Jesmer .

And now we have proof. According to numerous folks in-the-know, Jesmer has been the key staffer who convinced the usually reliable conservative John Cornyn to go all in for Charlie Crist. And it’s not even clear Crist would have left his safe seat as governor without the prompting of the NRSC. So instead of saving the GOP money in a crucial election cycle, Jesmer has turned both the governors race and senate race in Florida into needless expenses and was helped turn a previously successful career for Charlie Crist into a national disgrace.

If this were Jesmer’s only transgression, Republican grassroots might be able to overlook it. But its just the latest in a long line of poorly thought out decisions by the Washington insider. It seems to stem from his belief that conservatives are an obstacle to GOP majorities, instead of the foundation of the party.

Conservative icon Morton Blackwell, head of the Leadership Institute, likes to say that in Washington, “personnel is policy .” He’s right. Cornyn may be a conservative in his heart, but his top staffer at the NRSC thinks conservatives are “nuts” that need to be defeated in primaries and ushered into a dark corner of the GOP big tent. Therefore, Jesmer’s disdain for conservative grassroots is effectively the policy at the NRSC as long as he leads it.

If Crist bolts to run as an independent (as his advisers are hinting at and his veto of the teacher’s bill signals ), it will be the second time this cycle that Jesmer’s preferred candidate humiliated the party and cost Republican grassroots donors unneeded expenses. I don’t think this has ever happened once, much less twice, at the NRSC before. At least Lincoln Chafee waited until after his electoral defeat to admit he was a liberal.

It’s time for the staff at the NRSC to reflect the conservative values of NRSC donors. Or at least someone who is paid six figures for strategic advice that has a track record of strategic victories.

If Crist dumps the GOP, the GOP should dump the strategist that gave us the Crist and Specter disasters.

Call, write or email the NRSC and demand Rob Jesmer be shown the door.

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About Me

A convert to the Catholic Church who became Catholic because of a belief in and devotion to the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. * A graduate of Baylor University and the University of Virginia School of Law. * Former Mayor of the Town of Columbia, Virginia. * Married with four children: two boys and two girls. * Primary interests include the Catholic Church, family, Early American History, and law/politics * Primary purpose of this blog is fostering enlightened discussion about the roles played by the institutions of religion, family, and state in our daily lives. * Under the protection of St. Thomas More, martyr, and patron of lawyers, judges, civil servants, politicians, statesmen, and large families (not to mention troubled marriages).

Pray that, for the glory of God and in the pursuit of His justice, I may be able in argument, accurate in analysis, keen in study, correct in conclusion, loyal to clients, honest with all, courteous to adversaries, trustworthy with confidences, courageous in court. Sit with me at my desk and listen with me to my clients' tales. Read with me in my library and stand always beside me so that today I shall not, to win a point, lose my soul.

Pray that my family may find in me what yours found in you: friendship and courage, cheerfulness and charity, diligence in duties, counsel in adversity, patience in pain -- their good servant, and God's first. AMEN.

Dear Scholar and Martyr, it was not the King of England but you who were the true Defender of the Faith. Like Christ unjustly condemned, neither promises nor threats could make you accept a civil ruler as head of the Christian Church.

Perfect in your honesty and love of truth, grant that lawyers and judges may imitate you and achieve true justice for all people. AMEN.

"Give me the Grace Good Lord, to set the world at naught; to set my mind fast upon Thee and not to hang upon the blast of men's mouths. To be content to be solitary. Not to long for worldly company but utterly to cast off the world and rid my mind of the business thereof."